The third week of classes is almost over. Most of my students are going to be okay. A couple are not. A few are awesome.

In addition to the usual course load, I’m working with two of my former comedy students to produce half hour “goodbye” sets (they’re graduating): something I used to do before the pandemic. It’s a lot of work, but I’ve known these kids for years, and I want to give them a proper sendoff.

Anubis just got his stitches out, after yet another bladder surgery. An unfortunate bout of diarrhea means we need to rent a carpet cleaner soon.

I saw John Mulaney at the Golden One Center. I love him, but I don’t ever want to see comedy in a venue like that again. It’s too big. And I was seated in the front row balcony–a really narrow space. Every time someone had to pee, I worried one of us was going to fall over to our deaths. Is there a little bit of plastic to protect your drink from falling? Yes. Protection from YOU falling? Nope.

After almost four month, I was finally able to re-start my allergy treatment, at a different clinic. Because it’s been so long, they had to take my dose way down, and I have to go in every week now. On top of that, I still go to my regular UCD place to get my Xolair shots twice a month.

In other words, I used to have two shot appointments a month. Now, because UCD can’t seem to find an allergist, I have six. That sucks.

I got to see the National Theatre Live production of The Book of Dust, at the Tower Theater. They did a really beautiful job with it. It was the first time my friend and former Oxford assistant and I had seen each other in a long time.

I have discovered there’s a technical term for another way in which my body is weird.

I saw my ENT last week, because ever since Covid, or whatever I had at the very end of 2019, my right ear has been off: feeling stopped up, with low level pain. My ears have never been great: any change in elevation, even going to the foothills, is painful. It also makes me look awful: my eyes start to water uncontrollably.

In his exam, my ENT asked me to pop my ears.

I explained I couldn’t do that. He assured me I could. So I plugged my nose and blew.

“Oh, wow. You actually can’t. Nothing in your ear moved at all.”

He used a complex scientific term for what I was supposed to be able to do, one I can’t remember now and which isn’t coming up when I search for it.

I honestly hadn’t realized that everyone else could just pop their ears at will; I just thought my painful ears were part of everything hurting when it shouldn’t.

The good news: there’s apparently a treatment we can try, after we run a few hearing tests. As much as I travel, I hope it helps.

Finally, the Dean said a couple of week ago that if I only had 11 students for Dublin in the Fall, we couldn’t go. I did one last push. And it paid off. My 12th student has enrolled, so Dublin, here we come!

I haven’t had the chance to blog in a while, so this is going to be quite the catch all. Here’s what’s happening / what happened recently, in no particular order.

After taking off my bra in the ER on 12/2, after falling and fucking up my shoulder, I finally put a bra back on on 3/2.

I discovered The Mitchells vs. the Machines, which is now one of my favorite movies of all time.

I visited Indy and Chicagoland, which allowed me to see Vanessa, Tiffany, and Denise. Along the way, I got to meet V’s “committee” at her neighborhood bar, have four servings of lamb, visit three breweries; have a private whiskey tasting, watch Turning Red with my niece, get asked about cussing by my nephew, get spoiled with great food by Tiffany; watch Labyrinth with my niece and Vanessa, guard my food from my kitty nephew; explore stand-up with Ben and Kevin; watch my niece learn to make cocktails with Vanessa, visit a horror store, a science and surplus store, and a bookstore with Tiffany, get kicked in the back by two different boys on two different flights, meet a new friend, Eugene, spring forward for hopefully the last time, and introduce Denise to her now-favorite action / superhero movie.

All the while, I’ve been struggling with allergies. Due to problems at UCD Health, I haven’t been able to get my allergy shots since December, and I feel it. I still have to wait a few more weeks before I can start treatment again.

Anubis has had yet another health crisis. Crystals and stones in his bladder resulted in a cat ER visit. And as I write this, he’s in surgery to get them removed.

I’m still trying to figure out my student loans. The DOE finally fixed their paperwork to say I just had the original, de-coupled loans back in December. I immediately filed for loan forgiveness again. They haven’t acknowledged receipt of the application. I emailed them, but the reply ignored my question completely and simply gave me a pat answer about loan forgiveness for teachers who work in k-12.

I’m worried that they’ll simply ignore my application until the temporary access to forgiveness goes away.

My break became less restful when I was given an exciting opportunity: taking over teaching this Fall’s inaugural Dublin program. I had to swing into action to create a new syllabus, videos, and other outreach materials. Not sure if it’s going to work; in this climate, enrollments are low, so the course may not make.

I’ve started the quarter now–most of my undergraduates are wearing masks. Most of my graduate students are not. While on “break,” I was able to set up every aspect of my four courses and to answer my former students’ queries, of which there were many.

This year also saw the latest day a Christmas tree came down: 3/21!

I wanna be related to Eleanor of Aquitaine, I thought to myself yesterday.

This wasn’t entirely random.

I had read through a copy of my ahnentafel (genealogical) table, compiled by my grandfather many years ago. I have piles and piles of material from him, arranged in not always helpful ways (more on that in future posts).

My table goes to the 17th generation (if you count me as Gen 1). There are 19 ancestors listed in that generation.

In other words, my grandfather had traced us in various countries to the 15th century; this was his retirement project (and he retired in his forties). His greatest achievement was tracing our Finnish line back to the 1500s.

I hadn’t had a close look at my table in a while–I wanted to go through this one because it had info I didn’t know about my birth father (more on that later too).

As I was flipping into the more distant past, I noticed one of my Holland ancestors (gen 15) was noted as a bastard son of a Duke.

In the Gen 16, section, Henry Holland, 3rd Duke of Exeter, was listed, with his death year. It’s just a line.

That same section has a few paragraphs under a German relative’s name, with information about the town, German spelling, and how one guy can’t be another guy’s father.

So this Duke seems pretty unimportant, since there are no notes.

But, I realized, if he’s a Duke, we know who his parents are, surely.

Which took me down a rabbit hole. Henry Holland (and his ancestors and relations) were all heavily involved in The War of the Roses. Henry was an asshole by all accounts. He worked as a Constable at the Tower, and the rack (torture device) was nicknamed “Exeter’s daughter.” He ended up in the Tower much later, when his wife’s family (York) was in ascension, since he was loyal to the other side. (His wife? Richard III’s older sister.)

It was perhaps this disloyalty to the Yorks that enabled his wife to eventually divorce him (something rare at the time).

While my (Grand)Daddy recorded the death date, he didn’t note that most historians think he was likely thrown off a ship on orders of the King (while doing a job for him). (The official story was that he fell off and drowned.)

But what does Daddy go into on that page? How the now nonexistent German village’s name might have been spelled.

Henry Holland’s parents aren’t even on the Gen 17 page, though of course we know who they are (he was the third Duke of Exeter, after all).

Henry was a descendant of King Edward III on both sides of his family.

Why have I always been obsessed with the Order of the Garter?

Now I know I’m descended from one of the original knights–and from a Lady of the Garter.

I know about some beheadings.

About being descended from “the Unready.”

And yes, through my relation to this guy:

. . . I am related to Eleanor of Aquitaine and her husband, Henry II.

Today, I’ve traced us back to the 800s, to generation 38. There are other veins to follow, but since they don’t lead to English kings, they probably won’t go back so far.

One name on the tree caught my eye. In Gen 27, Henry I was married to Matilda of Scotland. Her dad was Malcolm III, whom I know as a boy who flees after Macbeth kills his father in the eponymous play. Thus, in addition to the Scottish line I can trace through the Andersons on my maternal Grandmother’s side and the Pagans also in (Grand)Daddy’s line, I’m descended from King Duncan, this guy:

My Masters was on Macbeth, my favorite Shakespeare play.

There are a lot more cool stories in my tree now.

I will read them the way you should read Shakespeare’s Macbeth (not quite history). I will also read them knowing that there are likely mistakes in the record and at least a few men were probably raising children they only thought were theirs.

My (Grand)Daddy was obviously not really interested in these stories of English and Scottish kings. My son’s guess is likely true: once he hit a royal, the fun was over. Everyone else had already built the trees. It was the search that drove him. His discovery that a sale of land happened between his wife’s ancestors and his many generations back was further proof for him that they were meant to be.

He was interested in what happened to the laborers, the peasants, the bastard children, the ones not famous to have a coat of arms.

The bastard son of the 3rd Duke of Exeter, Thomas Holland, had a grandchild (Gen 13) who immigrated to America. And then a long time after that, Bessie Christina Holland married Waito Walter Waltonen (Gen 4). They had my (Grand)Daddy.

Then I went and had a bastard son, shown here, being fed by his Great-Great-Grandma Bessie.

Springtime is officially here, which means allergy season is in full swing. What’s making it worse: I haven’t been able to get my allergy shots this year. My new allergy doctor quit (or something, not sure), so none of us can get the treatment we need. My system is going to farm me out somewhere else, but they can’t see me until the beginning of March, and even then, it won’t be for treatment, but for an evaluation. And I have to go without any allergy medication for a week beforehand. See, they want to treat me like a brand new person who didn’t have a working treatment plan to keep me out of the ER.

I’m using my rescue inhaler every day already. God help me when I have to go off my daily zyrtec and claritin (yes, both: I’m that allergic to every. fucking. thing).

In other news, I’m getting ready for my show on Saturday: I’m headlining at 8 p.m. on 2/19 in Kleiber Hall. I rehearse* every day, and I’m happy with how it’s shaping up.

*Rehearsal consists of me saying the routine out loud while taking a brisk walk around the neighborhood. I carry a pen and paper to write down new tags. I probably am getting a reputation.

I’m still doing pretty well, post-surgery, but I still get fatigued really easily. But it’s hard for me to rest. The boy catches me doing things I shouldn’t and yells at me to go lie down. The file cabinets have been cleaned, I’m trying new recipes, and working on my syllabi for Spring, though.

I’ve also been watching one short film every day this year. I don’t know if I’ll be able to keep it up when I’m back in the classroom, but it’s been a good New Year’s Resolution so far.

Finally, it’s Valentine’s Day. I’m going to have a quiet one here at home, with Jack.

The green light in the pictures? That’s just a bright bulb on the Christmas Tree.

Yup. It’s still up!

Happy Valentine’s!

In some of my classes, I offer book club extra credit. Students read a book, and we meet during finals week to talk about it.

Several years ago, I chose Maus for my Writing in Social Justice class.

We had a wonderful discussion, but one moment will stay with me forever. One student said Maus taught her about the camps.

The rest of us were aghast. She knew about the Holocaust, right? Yes, but she had never heard of the camps.

She thought all of the Jews and other people the Nazis didn’t like were simply shot on sight.

She had never watched any of the great films: Life is Beautiful, Schindler’s List. She didn’t know where and how Anne Frank died.

A student dedicated to social justice was missing a key part of history.

That’s why we must not ban books; we must read them.

It’s my half birthday! (Yes, I had cake.)

It’s been a little over two weeks since my surgery, which went well, though the immediate recovery didn’t. The doc and I were both relieved the surgery didn’t get cancelled; the nurses hadn’t even been told that was a possibility. I asked the anesthesiologist to use a smaller tube, due to the malformations in my neck and to my TMJ–she did, and I didn’t have a scratchy throat for days or major flaring of my TMJ. Instead, when I woke up, my back was absolutely killing me for some reason–and I was terribly nauseated. For hours.

Even though I was the first surgical patient, I was the last one out. The doctor expected them to admit me, but the nurses decided to send me home at 5 p.m., even though I was puking in the wheelchair down to the car. A little while later, I was on my hands and knees, with bile coming out into the bushes in front of my apartment.

All in all, the boy and I were at the hospital for 11 hours.

Once the nausea cleared, things were much better. I started getting an infection last week, but antibiotics cleared it up quickly. And I’m up and about and off the pain meds faster than anyone anticipated. I think it’s because I’m in pain all the time. If I lay in bed all day every day I hurt, I would be in bed all day every day.

That said, I’m being careful with what I lift and taking it as easy as possible. I get fatigued really easily, so I’m trying to let myself rest.

My shoulder is still messed up, two months after falling. It’s much better than it was, but there are still certain positions I can’t put it in, and I scream when I accidentally try to stretch it above or behind my head.

My friends made sure I had lots of yummy food the first week after surgery.

In other news, I’m sad Louie Anderson died. He has been one of my favorites since I was a kid.

The boy wanted to eat all vegetarian this week, so we’re doing that, including trying some new meat substitutes.

My car reached the unfixable point (more money to fix than I paid for it), so I had to buy another used car–in this market. Still, I got a decent price, all things considered.

It doesn’t have a working CD player, which means the hundreds of CDs, mostly burned into themed playlists, have to be replaced by an MP3 player, which is basically just going to be on shuffle forever. This upgrade hurts my OCD.

I’ve been slowly digitizing some of my old pics. Somehow digitizing apps make things fuzzier than just taking pictures of pictures.

Mostly, of course, I’ve been reading and watching tv. I recommend: Framed: A Sicilian Murder Mystery, Acapulco, Invasion, and Silent Sea.

Last night, I dreamed I was Serena Joy–the one played by Faye Dunaway in the movie adaptation. I was in my step-father’s dining room (lots of my dreams are set in his house). The Commander was dead, and Gilead was trying something new: it was dissolving all marriages and redistributing partners, to increase the chance of successful baby-making.

For some reason, I was going to be married off to a very young commander. I told a confidant that I suspected something would happen to make me a widow again soon after the wedding.

I woke up and told myself to remember this dream, so I could tell you about it today.

As I slipped back into sleep, Serena/I was retelling the dream story to help me remember it. Of course, it morphed into other things. I was all of a sudden Serena beset by suitors, other commanders who had always wished I was theirs instead of Fred’s.

I was trying to decide which suitor would allow me to be freest–for a woman in Gilead.

Next Friday, if I don’t get Covid and if my medical team doesn’t get Covid and if the hospital isn’t completely overwhelmed by Covid, I’m going to have a hysterectomy.

All of the pamphlets warn that I might be depressed, because I won’t be able to have children anymore, but aside from the general concern about having a major surgery, I’m elated to lose it.

When I started birth control after my son was born, I told God (I was a believer then) my terms: I would faithfully be on hormonal birth control until I wanted another child. If I got pregnant beforehand, I would have an abortion.

I expected that at some point I would want another. I expected to get married and build a family. Let me be clear, though: I was a kid myself, and I didn’t know myself very well.

A few years on, I knew I did not in fact want another child. Every time I pictured it, I pictured all of the hard parts: the sleeplessness, the not being able to go to the bathroom by myself for a few years, the arguments over pickiness. I love my son, and, even more importantly, I like him, but motherhood as a practice and vocation didn’t appeal to me enough to start over. Many relationships have either not really started or have ended because I won’t budge on this.

I was also afraid that since my son was so great, I couldn’t possibly get another child I liked. Would another child share our humor? Our affinity for reading and learning over sports? Our intellect?

Having another seemed like hubris, tempting the gods to temper my good fortune.

Having been abandoned by my son’s father when I was seventeen, two weeks before I gave birth, I was also wary to have another child unless I wanted one enough to do it completely alone. I didn’t think I would necessarily be abandoned again, but divorces and deaths happen. Now, too, I know that I don’t ever want to live with a partner again.

Being a single mother is really fucking hard, and I have no desire to repeat it.

So I’m thrilled that I don’t have to worry about an accidental pregnancy anymore. Excited that I can tell all the men my age and older who are just now ready to have children, as women their age approach menopause, that I’m not the one for them and that they won’t be able to think they can talk me into letting half their genes take up residence in my womb.

That’s not to say there isn’t sadness, though; it’s just not the kind the pamphlets warn about.

I’m sad when I think about how my one and only pregnancy, birth, and motherhood should have gone.

It should have been planned.

I should have been an adult.

I should have had even one person say, “Congratulations.”

I shouldn’t have wondered where I was going to live as I held him in the hospital.

I should have known more about who I am.

I should have been able to live as an adult for a while without also being someone’s mom.

I should have been able to date for a while without being a single mom. (So many men were jealous of my son and the fact that I’d carried someone’s child.)

I should have been more financially secure.

I should have been more in step with my friends as they were having kids, so we could have gone through this together.

I should have had fewer people assume I’m my boy’s sister, or sometimes now, even worse, his girlfriend.

I won’t be able to have another child at this time next week, but it doesn’t change anything fundamental. I’m still a working single mom; he’s just an adult now.

And I’m still the woman who wants to hold all the babies. Until they’re gross or crying. I’m still the woman who loves my son and my nieces and nephews. Even when they’re gross and crying.

Christmas was quiet and lovely. We had our traditional orange rolls for breakfast and appetizer lunch. (We tried Trader Joe’s Green Bean Casserole bites–we’re not fans.) The boy wanted Lamb Shawarma, so dinner was an easy crock pot creation. For dessert, we had local salted caramel ice cream in waffle bowls.

We watched the first Simpsons Christmas episode, the Christmas Futuramas, three classic Christmas movies, and two early Eddie Izzard specials.

We sat on couches under blankets and cats.

It was perfect.

(Except for how I worried that there was something in my ear for a long time because of weird noises coming from inside. But then the boy got it out–a stray piece of my hair was touching things and driving me mad.)

Right now, I’m half-watching the new Matrix, after rewatching the originals throughout the week. The first was so astounding all those years ago. The technology is of course not new now, and I prefer Matthew Vaughn’s fight scenes to these. I want to love this series, but maybe I’ve read too many boring, formulaic undergrad essays about whether we’re living in a simulation . . . Spotting all the layers of allusions and myths engage me mentally, and the meta-ness of the film I’m sort of listening to while I type might too, but I don’t think the series will ever have my heart.

And I started forbidding “what if we’re living in a simulation” papers last year.

In the last week (plus, since I left a lot out of the last one), I’ve gotten to see many of my closest friends, I’ve gotten a swell heated blanket, gotten a Margaret Atwood stamp from Margaret Atwood, gotten to see the Banksy exhibit, which I have mixed feelings about, have had to shift my pill times around (it went from five to seven and back to five times a day), made my annual Christmas music mix . . .

I forgot three important details about my colonoscopy last time: how I bled all over the blanket before I went under, when the nurse putting in my IV messed up, how three of my nurses were named Julie (which was convenient when I needed to get one of them “hey, Julie, I’m bleeding all over everything”), and how they did a pregnancy test for everyone except me, not even asking if they needed to, even though had a whole month of fertility possibility!

The best thing that’s happened recently, though, is that Paul, my beloved primary is back. When I went to the ER a few weeks ago, there was a message from Paul about it before I even got back home.

My arm is still fucked up, but my throat is healed from the colonoscopy day, and I have good doctors, and I’m typing in the light of a Christmas tree, so I’m very lucky.